Irony? Righthaven Accuses One Of The 239 Sites It has Sued Of 'Litigation Overkill'

from the you-did-what-now? dept

It's true. With apparently no self-awareness whatsoever, Righthaven -- the highly questionable company that has sued 239 websites/companies for reposting some content from the Las Vegas Review Journal or the Denver Post -- is now claiming that one of the sites it's sued, Democratic Underground, is engaged in "litigation overkill." That's because of the EFF and Democractic Underground submitting new "key evidence," that apparently proves the copyright assignment from the newspapers in question is a "sham" and not a legitimate assignment. We've seen that charge in the past, and it hasn't stuck, so it's interesting to hear there's "new evidence" on that question. Unfortunately, for now, that evidence is hidden. Still, Righthaven isn't happy about this and is claiming the whole thing is litigation overkill. I guess it would know what litigation overkill is...

lawyers who don't know that words have meanings

Has anyone else noticed... "Overkill" means excessive use of something appropriate. Righthaven's use of the word here implies that Democratic Underground is in the right, and could have won with less effort.

Righthaven's lawyers seem to have a penchant for this kind of sloppy language: “Righthaven intends to fully expose the readily apparent flaws presented in defendants’ arguments that would completely eviscerate countless years of licensing and related transactions throughout the country." Fully expose flaws that are already apparent? Eviscerate past transactions? Whah?

I have only one question:

Timeline

In our case:
1st, story posted at Las Vegas Review-Journal.
2 days later, story posted at Ely Times.
2 days later, we reproduced Ely Times story.
1 month later, Righthaven queries private registration for owner of domain. We find one story we neglected to excerpt and correct that oversight (which turns out to be the story in question).
1 week later, Righthaven submits copyright of story (under LVRJ title).
1 week later, Righthaven sues us.

Being a volunteer, spare-time nonprofit, we reluctantly settled. 6 months later, the stories at LVRJ and Ely Times still have no notice of Righthaven's copyright.

Boo Hoo Righthaven

Righthaven is now fighting 7 counter-suits and more of their litigants are choosing not to settle but fight. Clearly Righthaven misjudged the resistance they would encounter when they set up their business model. They assumed it would be similar to the RIAA that had only a couple of their litigants fight but they forgot to add in the equation that downloading illegal music is much more cut and dry than posting an article or image. Downloading a song has few fair use arguments while using an image or article has a wide range of arguments that can be used.

Just these 7 counter suits alone will wipe out the estimated 350,000 that Righthaven has squeezed out of victims. Unless Righthaven's backers are willing to lose a lot of money over this I would suspect Righthaven's rein of terror will soon come to an abrupt halt.